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Windows RT 8.1 update temporarily pulled due to a “situation”

Some devices left unbootable after installing the update.

The Windows RT 8.1 update for devices such as Microsoft's Surface RT has been removed from the Windows Store temporarily, after a "situation" prevented a "limited number of users" from being able to upgrade successfully.

The problem appears to be that the update is damaging certain boot data, causing affected machines to blue screen on startup. The issue is recoverable if you've created a recovery USB key (or have access to a machine that can create one), but Microsoft currently appears to have no easy way to create a suitable USB key from non-ARM machines.

To call this embarrassing for Microsoft is something of an understatement. While x86 PCs have extraordinary diversity in terms of hardware, software, and drivers—all things that can prevent straightforward upgrading—the Windows RT devices are extremely limited in this regard. Upgrading Windows RT tablets should be absolutely bulletproof. It's very disappointing that it isn't.

Update: Partially alleviating the problem, Microsoft has released a system image for Windows RT 8.1, so as long as you have another PC and a USB key, it should now be relatively easy to recover from broken upgrades.

117 Reader Comments

Yeah. That is embarrassing. My netbook managed to update fine. The mini-start button is okay but nothing that is going to make a person fall in love with it.

I will say to Microsoft: take this time and update the text you display on screen during the update. It's kind of eye-rolling to get a message about 'updating some things' on your screen. Felt kind of juvenile.

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

The 8.1 upgrade on my PC didn't go entirely smoothly but that's more understandable (while installing it switched to an invalid display mode for my monitor so I couldn't see any progress until the upgrade was complete).

It obviously wouldn't fix the issues entirely, but this is a great example of why Microsoft should host USB recovery images on the internet for users who register their devices or something along those lines.

While this shouldn't have happened in the first place, Microsoft needs to provide the means for end-users to fix the issue immediately on their own, and uploading a recovery image for the Surface (Pro, RT, and 2) does this.

While not the same issue, I for example cannot believe the hassle I had to go through at a Microsoft Store trying to get my Pro reset to stock when a confluence of events left me without any of my backups of the recovery image. In the end, even a Microsoft Store couldn't do it properly - they only used a Windows 8 disc, leaving the device again with no recovery partition.

I had minor issues on upgrade as well (broken 3D graphics drivers, and all Cygwin tools give strange error messages). The first Windows upgrade I've ever had problems with. And after all that, I can't honestly say I can see any real differences between 8.0 and 8.1. Sure, there's a button where the start menu used to be. But that seems to be about it. I can't help wondering what Microsoft has been doing for the last year or so.

I had minor issues on upgrade as well (broken 3D graphics drivers, and all Cygwin tools give strange error messages). The first Windows upgrade I've ever had problems with. And after all that, I can't honestly say I can see any real differences between 8.0 and 8.1. Sure, there's a button where the start menu used to be. But that seems to be about it. I can't help wondering what Microsoft has been doing for the last year or so.

It was largely a tablet focused update things like more touch settings and the better metro split screening make a pretty big difference on my surface. You can also set your desktop wallpaper to be the start menu background which I find makes things less jarring for desktops.

Ah, this explains why I wasn't seeing it on the Surface despite already installing 8.1 on my notebook.

Terrible, honestly. MS can never find enough ways to shoot themselves in the foot. And on my laptop (Yoga 13) it broke my audio which required poking around for a bit in order to fix. Seriously? This is basically a service pack with a few minor UI enhancements....

To be honest, there are a LOT of bricked ios devices after unsuccessful upgrades too.

Uh no there isn't. It's next to impossible to brick an iDevice. Especially if your not jailbreaking it or doing anything out of the scope of normal operation.

Actually it isn't next to impossible, I've seen it personally and Apple exchanged it without question. (They weren't able to fix it either). However, if it even happens in 0.5% of devices it's significant because of the large install base of iOS devices.

To be honest, there are a LOT of bricked ios devices after unsuccessful upgrades too.

Uh no there isn't. It's next to impossible to brick an iDevice. Especially if your not jailbreaking it or doing anything out of the scope of normal operation.

Actually it isn't next to impossible, I've seen it personally and Apple exchanged it without question. (They weren't able to fix it either). However, if it even happens in 0.5% of devices it's significant because of the large install base of iOS devices.

Weird. In my experience, if something goes wrong, it just throws up the plug me into itunes logo and itunes on the computer fixes it.

And if you can't get there, IIRC there is a special mode you can put it in to get that part fixed too, but maybe that was just for my Cowon D2

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

The 8.1 upgrade on my PC didn't go entirely smoothly but that's more understandable (while installing it switched to an invalid display mode for my monitor so I couldn't see any progress until the upgrade was complete).

Strange that this post gets so many up votes.

Do you guys seriously think this happened because Microsoft somehow didn't test the new update on one of the few RT hardware variants? Really?

My Windows 8.1 (desktop) install wasn't able to complete (after a 3 GB download, compatibility checks, 2-3 restars, 20+ minutes through install process, etc). Install just hung with no disk activity after choosing my account/user at (what I assume is) the very end. At least it recovered to Windows 8, though, with no noticeable problems. I think Microsoft has a few "situations" with this release...

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

The 8.1 upgrade on my PC didn't go entirely smoothly but that's more understandable (while installing it switched to an invalid display mode for my monitor so I couldn't see any progress until the upgrade was complete).

Strange that this post gets so many up votes.

Do you guys seriously think this happened because Microsoft somehow didn't test the new update on one of the few RT hardware variants? Really?

I find it unbelievable and yet how could even a basic test of the affected hardware have failed to pick up on corrupted boot data? This is why I called the apparent situation "bizzare".

Weird. In my experience, if something goes wrong, it just throws up the plug me into itunes logo and itunes on the computer fixes it.

And if you can't get there, IIRC there is a special mode you can put it in to get that part fixed too, but maybe that was just for my Cowon D2

I've seen every published recovery mode for the iPhone, I've jailbroken my old iPod touch in the early days when it took effort, and I've installed numerous betas via my developer account. I've also tracked a substantial number of problem logs in the same time period. Efforts to portray iOS devices as "virtually unbrickable" are completely and utterly wrong and misguided. In the vast majority of causes when the average end users says their iOS device has been bricked it is true that is it likely recoverable, DFU mode will recover the majority of these without difficulty, it is not, however, 100% guaranteed. Claims otherwise are made by will meaning, but ignorant enthusiasts.

Off topic, but Microsoft should have added a big note about how the SkyDrive works in the default "Express Settings" that most people will choose. By default, all new documents will be saved to the SkyDrive! This will create a big havoc for most people who will be wondering where their files went. It also results in slow file move/copy operation, just plain bad user experience especially if you are not aware that you are using the cloud. At the minimum, Microsoft should make users aware of the new scheme. MS f*cked up the W8.0 launch with lack of proper tutorial and I think they are making the same mistake again here.

Weird. In my experience, if something goes wrong, it just throws up the plug me into itunes logo and itunes on the computer fixes it.

And if you can't get there, IIRC there is a special mode you can put it in to get that part fixed too, but maybe that was just for my Cowon D2

I've seen every published recovery mode for the iPhone, I've jailbroken my old iPod touch in the early days when it took effort, and I've installed numerous betas via my developer account. I've also tracked a substantial number of problem logs in the same time period. Efforts to portray iOS devices as "virtually unbrickable" are completely and utterly wrong and misguided. In the vast majority of causes when the average end users says their iOS device has been bricked it is true that is it likely recoverable, DFU mode will recover the majority of these without difficulty, it is not, however, 100% guaranteed. Claims otherwise are made by will meaning, but ignorant enthusiasts.

Well, if that happens where it simply is not recoverable, as mentioned, who's to say it isn't the fault of hardware, and not the upgrade process.

In my limited experience with a ipod touch 32GB (same as iphone3gs gen), that thing got corrupted all the time, but each time itunes could fix it.

The XPS10 had a known issue when using the recovery option under 8.1 preview. Turns out it wouldn't boot without a microSD card installed after you did a full restore. Only way to fix it was to have a USB recovery drive and remove the restore partition. I wonder if it's the same issue.

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

The 8.1 upgrade on my PC didn't go entirely smoothly but that's more understandable (while installing it switched to an invalid display mode for my monitor so I couldn't see any progress until the upgrade was complete).

Strange that this post gets so many up votes.

Do you guys seriously think this happened because Microsoft somehow didn't test the new update on one of the few RT hardware variants? Really?

There's a relatively limited number of options. Either they didn't test it on all variants, didn't test it adequately, or made last minute changes which didn't get tested, etc. Somewhere in the chain something must not have been tested adequately, or this wouldn't have happened.

I have found trying to get an install iso for windows 8 was very difficult, and 8.1 pretty much impossible. If anyone here has managed to get an 8.1 pro iso please reply with a link. My machine is down too. I have a Sony vaio.

The way MS has it now, you must use their windows store and update it. I hate updating to newer version, and have always found it buggy in one way or another over the preferred clean install. MS want to take that away from us is disturbing.

It seems they are trying to lock stuff down like the other evil company. I hope they learned from this and make their install ISO's easier to find. After all you need the key to activate it. I don't want to use the torrented version. i paid for my copy.

My laptop and Surface RT both upgraded quickly and smoothly. I hope this is remedied by Monday so I can upgrade my Surface RT at work. It is understandable though that they pull it and prevent even a small minority of upgrades going bad. This is a very rational decision that the people should be behind. What is wrong with waiting a bit longer to insure a smooth upgrade for everyone?

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

I remember when Mango shipped for Windows Phone 7, updates were suspended temporarily because it was bricking a limited number of Samsung Focus devices. Turned our Samsung had engineered a hardware revision without informing Microsoft.

There are any number of reasons this might have happened. I'm sure they thought their test coverage was sufficient.

That is bizarre. Surely the number of different RT devices is limited enough so that they could literally test all hardware variants?

Somehow it does seem wrong that Windows 8.1 had a critical failure on the more closed, hopefully more sandboxed Windows RT hardware that Microsoft itself controls, while my Windows 8.1 download and upgrade went quickly and smoothly on my crazy edge case installation...the Windows virtual machine on my very old Mac running an outdated version of Parallels Desktop.

I didn't have issues upgrading my Surface RT but experienced weird issues on 8 Pro on my tower like not being able to restart or shutdown from the menu. A couple of reboots fixed it so go figure. In the end I'd rather them pull it and fix it before it became a bigger issue.

Weird. In my experience, if something goes wrong, it just throws up the plug me into itunes logo and itunes on the computer fixes it.

And if you can't get there, IIRC there is a special mode you can put it in to get that part fixed too, but maybe that was just for my Cowon D2

I've seen every published recovery mode for the iPhone, I've jailbroken my old iPod touch in the early days when it took effort, and I've installed numerous betas via my developer account. I've also tracked a substantial number of problem logs in the same time period. Efforts to portray iOS devices as "virtually unbrickable" are completely and utterly wrong and misguided. In the vast majority of causes when the average end users says their iOS device has been bricked it is true that is it likely recoverable, DFU mode will recover the majority of these without difficulty, it is not, however, 100% guaranteed. Claims otherwise are made by will meaning, but ignorant enthusiasts.

No, not 100%, but pretty close. But the important fact is that almost every one of those very rare instances can be fixed by the user him/herself, despite the experience of one poster here. That brings the actual number way down.

Sounds like the time I installed my MS Intellimouse 3 drivers after I upgraded to MS Windows 2000. The machine had to reboot, but then it wouldn't recognise the mouse or keyboard! I couldn't be bothered investigating with other mice and keyboards so I just did a fresh install of Windows 2000 and never touched the Intellimouse driver disc again.

I have found trying to get an install iso for windows 8 was very difficult, and 8.1 pretty much impossible. If anyone here has managed to get an 8.1 pro iso please reply with a link. My machine is down too. I have a Sony vaio.

The way MS has it now, you must use their windows store and update it. I hate updating to newer version, and have always found it buggy in one way or another over the preferred clean install. MS want to take that away from us is disturbing.

It seems they are trying to lock stuff down like the other evil company. I hope they learned from this and make their install ISO's easier to find. After all you need the key to activate it. I don't want to use the torrented version. i paid for my copy.

If the "other company" you're referring to is Apple, then for OS X, as you're talking about Win 8 Pro, the upgrade resides on your computer, and you can do the upgrade manually, if you want. You can also save the upgrade and install it on either a DVD, or 8GB memory stick as a bootable upgrade, as I've been doing with the last few upgrades. Then you can install from one of them, on any machine that can take that upgrade, no serial number or key required.

I don't know if Microsoft allows that to be done with Win 8, as I haven't tried it. I have Win 8 running under Parallels.

I choose Ubuntu just as a experiment. But it has worked so well I intend to keep using it.

For what do you use it?

For most of us the OS itself is just the tip of the iceberg. The bulk is the application configuration we have established beneath it and Unix/Linux of any flavor is essentially useless for that. There are certainly no compelling reasons to move from 7 to 8.x for that, however, (except for large enterprise IT which gets payola of various kinds)and there aren't many fools developing applications that won't work on 7 besides Microsoft and those they pay to do it.

Dell and HP have had downloadable reimaging tools for their thin clients for years, and many of the images are Windows installs. MSFT could effortlessly host the same for their device. The image should be live so it could be used for rescue and recovery. It shouldn't need a recovery key since the image would be for a specific MSFT device. There is no requirement for an install key with the Dell and HP tools because they already got their money for the hardware and thus the OS.